The Book of Daniel Affair

Making sense out of this one is kind of tough due in part to confusing reporting and some of the politico-corporate undercurrents involved. Bear with me.

This show was produced and set to air by NBC. Aiden Quinn is the show's executive producer and star; he plays the main character, Father Daniel Webster, who is described as a man who struggles to lead his congregation in a changing world while heading a troubled household.

A very troubled household.

The character descriptions reported in various articles about this action are as follows:

• Webster is an Episcopal priest addicted to prescription painkillers, Vicodin;

• he swears, saying "God damn him" at least once in the premiere;

• his wife is an alcoholic who likes her midday martinis;

• his natural son is a homosexual Republican struggling with the loss of his twin brother;

• his adopted Chinese son is full of jabs and overbooked with dates and is having sex with the bishop's daughter;

• his 17 year-old daughter is facing drug charges after being busted for selling marijuana;

• his father is a philandering bishop;

• his brother is embezzling from the church;

• his lesbian secretary is sleeping with his sister-in-law;

• and Webster has Jesus (played by Garret Dillahunt) as a personal friend who appears from time to time to offer light-hearted advice in imagined conversations -- but who is depicted as commonly shown in Christian iconographic representations: infinitely loving and compassionate, but a WASPified brunette (albeit male) with a nice, shoulder-length hair cut and trimmed beard.

At first I supposed that it didn't help that the networks had aired the two hour pilot in the Bible Belt, in a couple of cities with reputations for the reactionary idiots in residence, and figured that it probably would have played much better in cosmopolitan, progressive, and tolerant miliues such as New York City or San Francisco. However the show apparently aired nationally. It's just that opposition to it is centered in that area of the Bible Belt.

The movement against the show began in Dec 2005 when the utlra-conservative American Family Association began calling on affiliates and advertisers to bail out of the show. The AFA has claimed that its threats of boycotts have caused several sponsors to drop out, but the producers weren't aware of any loss of sponsorship[02]. So that is probably a lie from start to finish; unless it is just a simple-minded exercise in optimistic misrepresentation, but I don't tend to give those hysterics the benefit of the doubt.

So the premiere aired on 06 Jan, except for two NBC affiliates in the disaffected area; KARK and WTWO. Those two opted out, but the show was carried on another station in Little Rock. It was after the show was broadcast that the shit hit the fan. By 13 Jan the following stations had dropped or were considering dropping the show for various reasons:

• KAMR-TV, Amarillo, Texas
• KARK-TV, Little Rock, Arkansas
• KBTV, Beaumont, Texas
• KSL-TV, Salt Lake City, Utah
• WDAM-TV, Hattiesburg, Mississippi [03]
• WGBC, Meridian, Mississippi
• WSMV-TV, Nashville, Tennessee
• WTVA-TV, Tupelo, Mississippi
• WTWO, Terre Haute, Indiana

Now, other stations did pick up the show in some of those markets, and some of those brought down on themselves the wrath (read: reactionary hysteria) of the screaming fear- and hate-mongers. In Little Rock, WB42 agreed to run the series; following its announcement the station received threatening phone calls and e-mails which caused management to increase security. What is important to consider in this affair, is the various rationales for dropping it, and the nuances involved.

KARK almost certainly caved in to pressure levied by the AFA before the show even aired; chairman Donald E. Wildmon said of the show in a statement, "We are tired of NBC’s anti-Christian bigotry." A statement that is screamingly ironic in light of the bloody-handed attitude of Christianity which has been attempting to exterminate Judaism for some nine hundred and ten years, as of this writing[04]. Not to mention the contemporary hate-mongering belief that homosexuals are "morally disordered and intrinsically evil"; the christian bigotry against sexual expression, artisry, writing, music, etc, etc, ad nauseum. In point of fact, there is very little anti-Christian bigotry in the U.S., and the contention there might be a great deal or that it might be institutionalized flies in the face of claims that the U.S. is a Christian country. Getting back to my muttons, however, KARK-TV declined to air "Daniel" citing "careful consideration" of viewer feedback. This is a neat trick in time travel given that the station dropped the show two days before viewers could see it. Those who did complain were almost certainly responding to the "teasers", the advertisements for the up-coming show.

There is some ambiguity that I get from the reporting on WTWO general manager Duane Lammers. He said he was not pre-empting the show due to its content, but to protest what he sees as a strong-arm approach to affiliates by the networks, as well inconsistent federal oversight of indecent content. Reports do not entirely support that contention.

• In one article he is quoted as commenting: "This has nothing to do with the program and has nothing to do with the AFA. I think the system is screwed up. I think the network thinks we are going to do whatever they tell us to do. I think the regulatory environment is flawed."

• It was reported at 365Gay.com Newscenter that the Terre Haute station's Web site had a notice at the top saying "Due to emails and calls from viewers, WTWO will not be airing NBC's The Book of Daniel."

• Lammer is further quoted at 365Gay.com Newscenter: "Second, I want to draw attention to the worst offenders of indecency on television ... the cable industry, which faces no decency regulations, nor a license renewal."

My conclusion is that Lammers is an anti-"porn" activist, which can be laudable under the right circumstances, but these aren't them. For one thing, there is already a Supreme Court-set-definition for "indecent" and I seriously doubt that The Book of Daniel has content meeting the objective criteria established by that definition. If it did, then it would certainly have to have been slotted into the safe harbor by NBC. Moreover, the U.S. Supreme Court has further ruled on the matter of regulating the cable industry. It had decided that broadcast regulations could not apply to cable as it was a discrete transmission medium, and, secondly, that cable service required invitation into the home (a subscription)[05].

Right off the bat I have to ask myself: if this guy objects to the content of television programming, why is he working in television? At any rate, I conclude that he refused to air the show on his station due to his own prejudices rather than from any sound business reason. What I don't know is what obligations an affiliated station might have to carry any given program or episode being broadcast by the networks. It might be that Lammers is an uptight religionist and doesn't like to carry what he perceives as smut, but he is being bullied into carrying the network's line-up at the time scheduled by the network. That would fit in with his frustration at what he sees as a flawed regulatory environment; one in which the FCC does not prohibit "pornography" or "indecency" from being carried by the competition. Keep in mind, however, that such frustration would stem from his not getting his way in keeping what he finds offensive out of the minds of those who don't find it offensive.

WSMV-TV General Manager Elden Hale Jr. in Nashville and WDAM General Manager Jim Cameron in Hattiesburg decided to pull the show for what appear to be sound business reasons.

WSMV's general voice mailbox shut down within 20 hours of the premiere on 06 Jan because 137 complaint messages had filled the data storage. There were also complaints via e-mail and regular mail, including letters bearing church letterheads. Mr. Hale commented about these complaints: "Over the years, other shows have generated as much or more reaction, but this wasn't a cut-paste reaction where a national group says, 'Please send an e-mail to your station' and every e-mail is the same. These were individually crafted, considered, well-thought, well-reasoned e-mails and phone calls." Aside from this, Hale had asked that the show be allowed to air overnight, during the safe harbor, but NBC refused the request, despite the language and sexual content[06]. Hale further said: "It would have rated very poorly. But that's not the reason we chose not to air it. We chose not to air it because we did not think it was appropriate for broadcast television in Nashville and Middle Tennessee. Our viewers told us."

WDAM General Manager Jim Cameron was quoted in a newspaper article on 13 Jan, "At this point the issue is still under advisement. Right now we're going over feedback with our viewers who saw the program as we said we would. We will be making a decision whether or not to air the show again." He also commented, referring to an on-air editorial from 07 Jan, "I said that I never thought it was a good show to begin with. It's not compelling television, it's not that well done and I don't think it's going to last."

Still and all, whether or not a show succeeds or fails should be left up to the free marketplace, the viewers; all of them, not just the ones who phone in to gripe about it. It is certainly neither my place nor yours to decide what is moral or right or what is dull or interesting for them, or to allow the matter to be decided by telephone survey.

Last but not least, we have the case of KMTR-TV, Springfield, Oregon. An MSNBC.com article reported on how this station handled the matter: it conveved a focus group. After receiving complaints calling for the show to be pulled before it even aired, this station's NewsSource 16 invited several members of the local clergy to a pre-screening. They didn't like the content, but all of them reportedly agreed that fighting the show was not worth the time and effort. Quoted comments are:

• Pastor Mike Jaskilka of Berean Baptist Church:
  • "That's not the way people live. It doesn't represent families well. So what is the message that is being portrayed?"
  • "Every silly thing that comes up, I'm not going to be raising the banners and throwing out the warnings, because [parishioners] they're more discerning than that."

• Father Dennis Parker of Resurrection Episcopal Church:
  • "I would not want to be portrayed, myself, like that. That's not my life."
  • "Turn it off. If you don't want to watch it, turn it off."

• Pastor Debbie Pitney of First United Methodist Church:
  • "The thing I am most curious about is, why this is controversial. Just don't watch it. There are far more things for me as a person of faith to be concerned about in the world than whether NBC runs this program."

That's not the way people live. It doesn't represent families well.

I would not want to be portrayed, myself, like that. That's not my life.

Perhaps if the AFA were aware of these things, they would not have stupidly proclaimed that this show "mocks Christianity". From all reports, it clearly does nothing of the sort. It merely shows a number of different people, each of whom has his or her own demons, interacting the way people do, and who happen to belong to a Christian church.

FOOTNOTES:

[01] One of the writers is homosexual.
Return to place in main text

[02] The AFA had identified 10 potential sponsors in an e-mail to members; the list included Procter & Gamble, Colgate-Palmolive, General Motors, Daimler/Chrysler, Coca-Cola, Pepsi, McDonald's, Wendy's, Target, and Wal-mart.
Return to place in main text

[03] WDAM had not decided firmly whether or not to drop the show by Friday of its second airing; they were still considering commentary from viewers when that day's issue of The Clarion-Ledger was posted on the internet. KSL was also addressing the issue of whether or not to drop the show.
Return to place in main text

[04] Un-Christian anti-semitism actually dates back to the fourth century, with the death-bed conversion of Emperor Constantine in 337 being the cusp event that allowed its evolution. It wasn't until the First Crusades in 1096 (initiated by a call for a crusade by Pope Urban II in 1095), that the first of the anti-Jewish waves of extermination began that culminated most recently in the Holocaust under the Nazis. But which anti-semitism is still extent today.
Return to place in main text

[05] Whereas radio and television transmissions are squirted into the air and pass through your walls and into the receiver whether you want them to or not. Broadcasting is regulated for this reason, whereas you have to ask for cable service.
Return to place in main text

[06] Noting here that the sexual content in question should have been the same kind of simulated sex that can be seen on CSI. No excretory or sexual organs -- or even breasts -- would have been in evidence if so. But some viewers who don't know how to stop watching something they find offensive were mortified by the scene of teenagers having sex in the back seat of a car. Like that hasn't been going for something like three generations, now.
Return to place in main text